The pillowcases above were made for my middle favorite daughter. We were shopping at JoAnn's recently and she was fondling the velvety flannel with great delerium. :-) She mentioned that she really, really, really loved the previous flannel pillowcase I had made for her and could I please, please, please make her some more with ::ahem:: all of these flannels? (Picture her batting her eyelashes at me in a very fetching manner. Not that fluttering eyelashes works with me (after all, I am the MOM, but I do succumb to earnest endearments. :-) )
How could I resist? Besides, the flannels were on sale. :-)
The body of the pillowcases were of the flannel, while the accent bands and bottom bands were obtained from my stash. The only pillowcase that was a tad disappointing was the green with purple band. The purple band had the most delightful green frogs on it. Since it was a directonal print, I had to make sure that the frogs reamined right side up on the band ... I'm sure they would have been very uncomfortable to be upside down all the time. But, I had only a very small amount in my stash and to have the frogs be right side up .... [sigh] their heads got cut off. Poor frogs. I profusely apologize.
Like so many other seamstresses, I've made my share of special pillowcases. I've used many different directions with many different techniques. Over the years, I have cherry-picked the best pieces of all of them into my own set of directions, so that *I* am happy with the finished pillowcase.
What I like about my directions are:
- All the seams are finished or enclosed. I HATE, HATE, HATE seeing the seam allowance showing at the edge of the pillowcase. It looks UGLY. Yes, it's faster to sew the decorative band on first then do the side seam, but if you're making something, why on earth would you want to make something that doesn't look nice?? If you're under a time constraint and can't get a beautiful gift done on time, give the recipient a "I owe you one pillowcase "in progress" coupon. Or start sooner. :-)
- The accent strip is a separate piece of fabric, allowing you to coordinate it with the body and the bottom band. I've used directions that use a tuck for a faux accent strip. That works, of course, but I like the accent strip to be noticeable.
- I have been taught to make the inside/reverse of something as beautiful as the outside (or as nearly as I can). It's a matter of pride in one's work. Yes, it does take a little longer, but the result is a finished item that you can be proud of. You never look at it and say that you should have done it better. Therefore, I use French seams on my pillowcases.
- There's no trick technique or fancy smoke-and-mirror procedure. It's all just basic sewing.
- Best of all, I use the full width of fabric for my pillowcases. Most directions I've seen have you cut down the yardage to 40" wide so that you have a 20" wide pillowcase. That leaves you with a skinny,lengthwise strip that is practically worthless. I hate that! So, I use the full width of fabric and my pillowcase are just a skoosh wider ... no waste. :-)
If you would like to try my directions, I've made them available as a PDF.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
